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Monday, March 28, 2016

Kids Gymnastics Trial Lesson @ GymKraft Singapore

Lil Pumpkin went for her first kids gymnastics lesson at GymKraft Singapore last Saturday!!

She has been taking swim lessons at our club for about 1.5 years now and is progressing well. However, her interest in the lessons has been waning and I don't think she enjoys it as much as before. Swimming is still an essential life still though, especially since we like to go the beaches / pools / water theme parks so often, and I reckon once she is 100% water confident and able to swim at least 400m on her own, we'll stop her swimming lessons if she wants too.

Coming from a swimming background, it makes me a little sad to know that she probably won't be following my footsteps to take up swimming as her main sport and interest. There were days when I would daydream that she would train under my previous coaches, train with some of my swim-mates' kids, join competitions and I would be cheering for her from the spectator stands like my mum used to do.

However, I've learnt to let it go and let her just have fun in the water. Maybe she's just not meant to be a competitive swimmer and I don't want to force her if she doesn't want to do it. She doesn't need to be a competitive swimmer just because I was one and I hope others don't expect that of her too. She is her own person and has her own talents.. which we think are many.

It might come naturally to her and one day, she might come up and say she wants to pursue swimming but we'll see.

Meanwhile, we're happy to let her explore and try out different sports and activities. In school, she joined the Art Club as her extra-curricular activity and now, she'll be taking weekly gym classes too to develop her physical coordination, agility and abilities.

I think during her school's physical education class they are exposed to very basic gymnastic movements and when she's home, sometimes she will try to roll, cartwheel, do a handstand etc. It's fun and all, but if she really wants to learn and practice, I'd rather she learn how to do it properly and safely before she hurts herself. I mean, this little girl paralysed herself while doing a backbend at home.

The backbend is a simple movement {like rolls, cartwheels etc.} and I've done it dozen of times.. but sh*t happens and it could happen to anyone. I really don't want it to happen to Lil Pumpkin.

Most of the time when we choose places that we want to go for classes, it's because of convenience i.e. the location and whether the class would fit in our current busy schedule. After that we'd check out reviews, if available, to see that it's at least a decent place and all.

The boy and I are too busy to go looking around and traveling far for the "best" place for whatever lessons we / Lil Pumpkin want to take. Moreover, whatever is great for someone else may not be the same for us too. But having said that, at the very least there should be no bad reviews (ᗒᗨᗕ)

Well, we chose GymKraft because it's pretty conveniently located and there are a good number of lessons daily. It is located at the former Singapore Badminton Hall at Guillemard Rd and it is really huge!

Since Lil Pumpkin has no previous gymnastics experience, she is starting out in BeGym where children are introduced to the various gymnastics apparatus. The lessons build up on their balance, coordination, body movement and confidence, as they work their way through various skill levels on each apparatus, and will be tested at regular intervals. After that, there's BeGYM-Plus which is supposed to ease them toward a more structured and disciplined environment, where some kids may become interested to participate in gymnastic competitions.

We like it also because there are adult gym classes available there. Oh, I think I haven't updated here but I'm doing CrossFit again, in addition to my personal training sessions at Genesis Gym. Just to have some variation in my fitness training and I enjoy the exhilarating workouts every now and then. The boy goes for it regularly {more on that later} and it's a fun couple thing that we can do together so that's one reason why I'm taking it up again too.

In CrossFit, there are some calisthenics exercises like muscle-ups and handstand push-ups that require you to have some sort of gymnastic skills so the boy and I are toying with the idea of attending adult gym classes too. Some day, when we can manage to fit it all in hahaha..

So anyway, Lil Pumpkin really enjoyed her 1-hour trial lesson where she practiced how to roll, do a handstand, walk on the balance beams, and learnt how to stretch. There were about 4-5 kids in her class to one female teacher and they have a strict student-teacher ratio policy. We signed her up for a package of 8 x 1-hour lessons {trial lesson fee waived if we do it on the same day} and we'll see how it goes from there (☆▽☆)

4 comments:

I hope Little Pumpkin enjoys her gymnastics! Allison took it for 7 years. She's been away from it for about 2 years now, but is hinting that she would like to go back. We might do a trial run this summer before committing to a full 3 month course. She was pretty burnt out by the time she gave it up, so we'll see.

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